Long-time readers may remember that I have been working my way through a “101 Things in 1001 Days” list.  Number 18 on my list is to learn Spanish.  The folks at Rosetta Stone are helping me with that goal – they’ve graciously agreed to let me review Rosetta Stone’s (Latin American) Spanish program.

What is Rosetta Stone?

For those who may not be familiar, Rosetta Stone is a computer-based language learning program.  It’s available in more than thirty languages.  What I like best about it is also what makes it unique; it works by immersion.  Most language programs require that when you, for instance, look at an image, you first “hear” that word in your native language, then translate it mentally into the language you’re learning.  This is a cumbersome process, and doesn’t very effectively develop fluency.  (I think of fluency as thinking in the language you’re learning.)  Rosetta Stone doesn’t do this.  Rather, it immediately “immerses” you in the language you’re learning, teaching in the target language.  Because of the way it’s set up, this is not frustrating at all!

Depending on the settings (reading, writing, speaking), the lessons show you an image or group of images, along with the text, say the word or phrase to you (where appropriate), and have you select the appropriate image or say the words back.  The process is simple enough that, without the text settings, a preschooler could use the program.  Yet the learning produced is complex enough for an adult.  My seven-year-old loves it, because it’s like a game.  She and I are using the same level of the same program, and we are both enjoying and benefiting from it.  (She has the writing portions disabled right now, though, while I have them turned on.)  So this is really a flexible program.

Because of the nature of this product, a single review post will really not do it justice – at least not at this early stage.  So I will be posting every couple of weeks about our progress.  So far, we’ve only been using it for a week or so, and I think we’ve both finished about two lessons. That obviously isn’t much!  But I feel that I am internalizing the vocabulary (and, to a smaller extent, the grammar), and my daughter has been thinking a lot on the words, despite getting a very large percentage of the answers wrong when she’s actually working on the lessons!  (She doesn’t listen very carefully, so she doesn’t mimic their pronunciation very well.  Yet.  I’m hopeful that this will also help with listening skills in other areas of her life!)

Perhaps by the end of this school year, I will be at my goal. 🙂